Lesson 4 – I Peter Chapter 1:12-18
We ended last week discussing how the prophets were curious and very interested in the prophesies they spoke of. They weren’t sure what it all meant. They knew the Messiah was going to come because God made that promise, but they just didn’t know how it was all going to play out. We can relate to them because we have the prophesies yet to be fulfilled, and with some of them, we’re just not sure how or when God will fulfill them. For instance, the Rapture of the church, we know the season when it will happen, but not the day when Christ will come for us, although some people still try to set dates for God.
Peter continues with the prophets…
I Peter 1:12
“It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things into which angels long to look.” (NASB)
In other words, God made known to the prophets that they wouldn’t experience all that we experience in Christ, that they were serving God for our benefit. The prophet’s searching would never be fully satisfied, because the gospel message couldn’t be revealed at that time.
The writer of Hebrews makes reference to this…
Heb. 11:13
“All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.”
In these things…
This is referring to the salvation of grace that was coming for all who would believe in Christ.
Acts 4:4a
“But many of those who had heard the message believed.”
Have been announced to you…
Years earlier we see Peter was the first one to make such an announcement about grace salvation.
Acts 2:38-39
“Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
Those who preached the gospel to you…
Besides Peter, there were the other apostles, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Philip, James and Jude the half brothers of Jesus, Steven and many others who preached the gospel.
What did they all have in common? They all were empowered by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Paul illustrates what Peter is conveying to us in I Cor. 2:1-5:
“When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the One who was crucified. I came to you in weakness – timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.” (NLT)
There are some, perhaps with the very best intentions, who try to manipulate those whom they’re presenting the gospel to with “persuasive speech” as Paul says. Humanly speaking, if someone can talk you into the gospel by engineering your emotions, then it also applies that someone can talk you out of being saved as well. The reason this can happen is the Holy Spirit isn’t in it. Yes, God uses man to spread His message of salvation, but ultimately it’s the Holy Spirit who is the One proclaiming God’s truth to a person’s heart.
Things into which angels long to look…
Things… What things? Things has to do with everything about salvation, like God’s grace, the glory of salvation, and God’s forgiveness of sin.
Just as we are very curious about angels, angels are curious about this salvation which God has blessed the believer with. Our verse says that angels long to look. The word long is defined as having a “strong desire” or an “overpowering impulse” which is not easily satisfied. I suspect that once we’re in heaven, we’re going to have some very “spirited” conversations with God’s angels (pun intended).
The word look is just as interesting, it literally means to stretch one’s head forward or to bend down. I’m sure most of us have done that, stretching your head forward just to get a closer look at something.
One commentary says, “The angels, as it were, want to get down close and look deeply into matters related to salvation. They have a holy curiosity to understand the kind of grace they will never experience. The holy angels do not need to be saved, and fallen angels cannot be saved. But the holy ones seek to understand salvation so that they might glorify God more fully, which is their primary reason for existence.”
I Peter 1:13
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Peter and Paul must have been buds because they both like to use the word “therefore.” Why is Peter using therefore?
Looking back on what Peter has said, we know that as believers, we will face many trials over our lifetime, but we also know that we can face them head on. Why is this? Because of the greatness of God’s grace for us. By God’s grace and mercy He gives us the salvation the prophets (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) studied and searched, the apostles who preached, and that the angels continue to look into this salvation.
Then Peter says to us, “prepare your minds for action.” What an amazing phrase to use. The King James says, “gird up the loins of you mind,” which is not so easy for us to envision. I like prepare your minds for action. It’s kind of like we’re on the starting line of a race and Peter is on the sidelines with a starter pistol… we’re getting ready to run a race or fight a battle, we’re ready. We can expect that things can get hard for us at times, and that we should prepare our minds for action. The one logical way to prepare for this action is to fill your mind with the Word of God… read it, study it.
Rom. 12:2
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Preparing and renewing your mind go hand-in-hand very nicely. To do this, we need to surrender our will to God’s will. Our old nature will resist against this, don’t let it. Prayerfully ask God to help you (James says, “But he must ask in faith without any doubting”) …God will help transform your mind and your heart as well.
Keep sober in spirit… this is to have an inner alertness, making sure that the influence over our mind is only the Holy Spirit, that we’re believers seeking the Spirit filled life.
I Thess. 5:6
“So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”
It’s a reminder for us not to lose control and not give in to the ways of the world’s sinful solutions.
Matt. 16:26
“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
On the surface, the world has many allurements to attract us, so it’s important that we not give in to them, that we always maintain our spiritual disciplines and have self-control.
Fix your hope…
Peter is using a military fashioned expression which points to a decisive kind of action. This reminds minds me of a command given in the Army or Marines… “fix bayonets,” this meant to get ready for close combat. Christians, fix your hope!
What this comes down to is to have hope, with a prepared mind and with self-control. These are the spiritual disciplines that are realized through a close relationship with God. At its core, hope is equivalent to faith.
Rom. 5:1-2
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
The major difference between hope and faith is our faith involves trusting God in the here and now, and hope is a future faith, trusting God for what is to come.
What do we fix our hope on? Paul just said it in Romans 5:
“This grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
Peter says, “fix your hope completely on the grace.”
Completely… means wholeheartedly (perfectly), and could also be depicted as “fully.” For Christians to have hope “half-heartedly” or “vacillating” is to show a lack of faith in God.
Rom. 8:25
“But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.”
Hoping for what we can’t see does take faith, and if we look back on our lives, we can see that God has always been faithful to us. There should be no room for doubting concerning the promises of God and how He works in our life.
Col. 1:23a
“But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world.” (NLT)
By faith we should never move away from the hope of the gospel. Our hope is always on God’s grace, Peter says, “the grace to be brought” … Remember, hope always looks forward. The way this verse is put together in a grammatical sense, shows grace to be a future event, and at the same time it’s already happening for us as far as abundant grace is concerned. The event to be brought is the revelation of Jesus Christ!
The revelation of Jesus Christ… if you were at a football stadium and your team just scored a touchdown, you would stand up yelling and cheering. This should be our attitude as well when thinking about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ coming is what Peter is referring to here, and our hope is on the fact that Jesus is coming back… perhaps very soon.
Rev. 1:7
“Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.”
It’s been said, “Believers have an obligation to live in view of the Second Coming of Christ.”
Are you living that way? Do you have the hope that Jesus is coming back, that God always keeps His promises… and He’s going to fulfill every prophecy given? Without this God-given hope in a person’s life, life would be a sad existence.
Rom. 8:23
“And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
The older we get the more we groan… just saying.
It’s so interesting, how we study God’s Word, and when we do, we come across so many truths that teach and remind us things. Like every time we read of hope, grace, salvation, forgiveness, and the return of Jesus… all these things should re-energize your soul, it should put a new spark in your spirit. When it does, it gives us the encouragement we need to press on.
I Peter 1:14
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,”
Peter knows who his audience is, and he’s speaking directly to believers as obedient children.
As the believer walks in obedience to God, it affirms the character of that person. Our obedience is the way we should respond to our salvation, and that our response is very different than that of the world’s, because our future is different from their future.
We have a love and obedience reaction to Jesus because He saved us, this is polar opposite to the unbeliever.
John 14:21
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Do not be conformed to the former lusts…
This is B.C., before Christ came into your life… the things we did before we were saved (former lusts). We do have a tendency to look back on where we used to be in our life. Looking back isn’t necessarily a healthy thing for us to do, but it can serve a good purpose… that we don’t return to our old sinful ways.
Which were yours in your ignorance…
Quite frankly, as slaves to sin, we didn’t know any better then, we were just acting according to our sin nature, which we were doing in ignorance. Paul makes a plea for us in Acts 26:18, that we “turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God.”
Acts 17:30
“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,”
Overlooking our times of ignorance does not indicate that God was okay with our sin, but speaks of His endless grace toward us. We didn’t know any better before our salvation, this goes for Jews and Gentiles alike, but now Peter is calling us to a higher level of obedience… to be holy!
I Peter 1:15-16
“But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
I think some Christians read this verse and simply move on to the next verse, because they think being holy is an impossibility for them to achieve. They say, “Only God is holy, I can’t be holy,” and they’ll say it with all sincerity and respect.
In a book I highly indorse, “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges, he writes; “To be holy is to be morally blameless. It is to be separated from sin and, therefore, devoted to God. The word signifies “separation to God, and the conduct befitting those so separated.”
I Thess. 4:3-7 (NLT)
“God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor… not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and His ways. Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.”
When Peter is saying for us to be holy, this is in direct contrast to our former way of life according to the evil desires we had before we were saved, like we saw in verse 14, us being ignorant.
When it comes to being holy, of course God is our standard.
Matt. 5:48
“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Holiness is the crown and glory to all of God’s attributes. Can you imagine God being all powerful, all knowing, being present everywhere and not being holy… we’d all be in big trouble. God can’t for one moment relax His perfect standard of holiness.
We can only live a holy life through the power of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of living a holy life is to glorify God and display His nature to those around us. As we talked about earlier, obedience to God is key when it comes to our holiness.
Rom. 6:11
“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Because God is holy, He can never excuse or overlook any sin, no matter how small we think our sin is. Any time we face temptation, we should say, “I’m dead to that! That was part of my old life!” Therefore, to live a holy life, is to separate ourselves from sin, we must see ourselves as God sees us… as born-again children of God, clothed with the righteousness of Christ.
Habakkuk 1:13a (speaking of God)
“Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor.”
The undeniable reason for a believer to pursue a life of holiness is to have an ongoing relationship God. When the Christian sins, salvation still remains, but communion and fellowship are broken at that point. The remedy is confession, thus the relationship is restored.
Holiness for the believer is attainable, God’s Word insists on it… don’t let satan rob you of it. When you fall down, get right back up again.
Heb. 12:14
“Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.”
I Peter 1:17
“If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth;”
“And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” (NLT)
If you address as Father… or if you call on the Father
This is how believers should see God… as their Father.
When Jesus teaches us to pray, He starts with, “Our Father who is in heaven.” God the Father is not only the Father of Jesus our Lord, but He is our Father as well.
Gal. 4:6
“Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Also…
Rom. 8:15
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
As I’ve pointed out before, Abba translates to papa or daddy. It’s incredible that the God of the entire universe is our Dad.
There is no partiality with our Father in heaven, He judges everyone on a level playing field.
Deut. 10:17
“For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed.”
Acts 10:34-35
“Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.”
For God to judge impartially means He’s going to be fair in all His judgments. Unlike the judicial system we have in our country today, where justice can be bought at the highest price, then at the same time, if you don’t tow the party line… there is no justice at all.
The judgment Peter is referring to is for believers only. Because we know that at the coming White Throne Judgment there isn’t any works you can do to get you into heaven, you can only get into heaven through the blood of Jesus… it’s in the blood!
Again, the judgment Peter is referring to is the Judgment Seat of Christ, or the Bema Seat Judgment. I’ve covered this before so we won’t get into it. But it’s a comfort to know that our Father is holy, and everything He does is holy… even His judgment is holy.
Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth…
In fear, as you also know, is to have an honor and respect for God, a reverential fear. God is our Father and we’re to have love and respect for Him.
Exodus 20:12
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.”
This is implied for our earthly father, but so much more, are we to honor and respect our heavenly Father… remembering who God is.
During the time of your stay on earth…
Are you having a pleasant stay here on planet earth?
How often do you feel like you just don’t belong here? In chapter 2 Peter refers to us “as aliens and strangers.” So, it’s okay if we’re feeling like we’re not home yet because we’re not. But take heart, it’s coming, Jesus will rule and reign on this earth for a thousand years, and we will be with Him… then you will feel like your home. Amen!
I Peter 1:18
“Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,”
Redeemed… our redemption, Puritan Thomas Watson said, “Great was the work of creation, but greater the work of redemption; it cost more to redeem us than to make us; in the one there was but the speaking of a Word, in the other the shedding of blood.”
Redeemed with silver or gold suggests the idea of offering something, usually money, in exchange for the freedom of a slave or a prisoner of war. We were bought with a very high price, God Himself bought our freedom by paying for us with the life of His own Son. The blood of Jesus is priceless!
Your futile way of life… this identifies for us a useless and worthless existence.
Rom. 1:21
“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
No matter what kind of ideology a person holds on to, every unredeemed man or woman is living a futile life. Even if a person makes the greatest contribution ever know to mankind, their achievements are absolutely meaningless when looked at from an eternal perspective. Good works prior to redemption are worthless filthy rags as far as God is concerned.
Eph. 4:17
“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,”
An empty futile life dooms a person to a life of sin and death and judgment.
Eccl. 12:13-14 (King Solomon ends his book)
“The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
The unredeemed life is an empty life with no hope for the future. Pray always for the unredeemed. Also, when the Holy Spirit brings someone’s name to your thoughts, whether you know them personally or not, pray for their salvation.
We’ll end with the last part of our verse;
Inherited from your forefathers, it’s another negative having to do with unredeemed passing on their idol worship. This is talking about religious traditions, the Pharisees were blinded by this, even when it was obvious to them that the Messiah had come.
Matt. 15:7-9
“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”
Religious traditions are for the most part “man-made ideas.” Every religion other than Christianity is works-based, trying to be a good person in order to get into heaven. They are locked up in idol worship and various rituals (aimless conduct). None of this brings redemption.
As we leave this place tonight let’s continually be preparing our minds for action, keeping sober in spirit (being filled with the Spirit), allowing us to fix our hope completely on the grace of God and His salvation.